The structural conflict between the US and China seems to be increasingly free of gray areas, and Taiwan's IC design sector, which has been least affected by the semiconductor trade war between both countries, has been keeping a low profile to avoid being impacted, turning cautious in dealing with Chinese customers, according to industry sources......»»

China-based XPeng finished 2022 with its vehicle margin decreasing from 11.5% to 9.4%. The EV company, which has been under an organization restructuring, plans to further its cost reduction efforts through technological innovation......»»

Since entering 2023, performance of the memory market has been worse than expected, and the South Korean securities industry has revised the estimated operating losses of both Samsung Electronics' Device Solutions (DS) division and SK Hynix......»»

It has been widely discussed that TSMC's overseas expansion may lead to soaring production costs. However, Dr. Nicky Lu, the chairman of Etron Technology, believes that it is necessary for Taiwan's tech industry to decentralize its production around the globe. TSMC moving part of its production capacity overseas may further complicate the business model. However, it is a challenge that businesses need to overcome to further strengthen international corporate operations in the future......»»

The world's most advanced and delicately fine-tuned semiconductors wouldn't be possible without the aid of giant steel storage tanks built by a little-known Tokyo company founded in 1927......»»

As the global manufacturing industry experiences diversification rarely seen in previous decades, Samsung Electronics has spearheaded the relocation wave. According to DIGITIMES Research, the significant investment by Samsung in Vietnam has created a reciprocal relationship between the company and local governments, representing a huge difference in Samsung's investments in Vietnam and India......»»

As Qualcomm is set to place wafer starts with TSMC for new handset APs, RF chips, networking chips, and even PC CPUs to be launched in the second half of 2023, its backend supply chain partners in Taiwan are all eyeing a resultant surge in their services to the US chipmaker......»»

Taiwan's exports of integrated circuit chips to China and Hong Kong fell for a fourth month in February as Washington-Beijing tensions simmer and demand for electronics continues to drop off......»»

Taiwan PC monitor makers' shipments decreased 6.4% sequentially and 26% on year to come to less than 18 million units in the fourth quarter of 2022 as the global economy remained in a downturn, while most brand vendors still had high inventory at the channel, according to DIGITIMES Research's study on the Taiwan PC monitor industry......»»

Japan-based Thermalytica achieved a breakthrough in the development of a super insulation material that significantly enhances the efficiency and cost-competitiveness of transporting and storing liquid hydrogen......»»

BGA (ball grid array) packaging demand for high-pixel and large-size automotive CMOS image sensor (CIS) chips remains in high gear, but lower-end car-use CIS products processed with wafer-level chip scale package (WLCSP) technology are showing signs of an oversupply, undermining backend demand and triggering price falls, according to sources with CIS packagers......»»

According to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, the Thai smartphone market declined by 21%, ending 2022 with 16.6 million shipments, marking the lowest number of units sold in a year since 2014. Shipments fell 23% on year or to 4.2 million units in the fourth quarter of 2022......»»

The global chip shortage has resulted in countries elevating semiconductor manufacturing to a "national security issue." Not only are the Chinese and Korean governments continuing to spend heavily to support their chip industries, but Europe, the US, Japan, Singapore, and India are also announcing semiconductor subsidy bills and policies. They aim to lure foundries to set up fabs locally while bringing their supply chain along with them. Among the significant foundries, TSMC is the top target......»»

Wistron is building a digital content innovation center in northern Taiwan in cooperation with Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and the facility is expected to begin operation in 2026, according to company president and CEO Jeff Lin during the project's groundbreaking ceremony......»»

NAND flash revenue will continue to decline into the first quarter of 2023 despite lower drops in memory ASPs, according to a recent TrendForce report......»»

Indonesia's EV subsidies are taking effect today on March 20. As the program was announced earlier this month, the government is providing purchase subsidies to achieve sales goals of more than 200,000 units of electric scooters and 359,000 units of electric cars......»»

Qualcomm has recently inaugurated its advanced engineering and testing center in Hsinchu, northern Taiwan to provide services for Taiwanese semiconductor supply chain partners, and will continue to expand its presence in Taiwan with more investments and purchases, according to Roawen Chen, senior vice president and chief supply chain and operations officer at the US chipmaker......»»

Following the official unveiling of ERNIE Bot, Baidu's answer to ChatGPT, Baidu CEO Robin Li mentioned that the company's in-house Kunlun chip is only suitable for large-scale model inference, but in the future it will move towards AI model training. In other words, the computing power of ERNIE Bot, before it offically goes online, will be outmatched by Microsoft, Google and OpenAi as they adopt Nvidia's H100 GPUs based on 4nm technology. To address the problem, according to China-based media, Baidu has to repurpose the 7nm-based NVIDIA A100 GPUs originally allocated to its auto chip department......»»

Despite India's eagerness to build a self-reliant semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem and an abundance of engineers in the IC design sector, India lacks the required talents to have a functioning IC manufacturing business and may have to recruit them from abroad, at least initially......»»

NAND flash revenue will continue to decline into the first quarter of 2023 despite lower drops in memory ASPs, according to a recent TrendForce report......»»